The Darkest Hour
by Capt. Cow
Summary: crack!fic. The outlaws discover TV on DVD. Danger lurks for all.


**Convenience**

**Disclaimer: **I just spent all my money on this fancy new laptop (which I am christening with this story!) But I own nothing else, certainly not Robin Hood. This story is for pleasure not for profit.

**Authors Note: **So, have had this floating around for a little while. It's utterly ridiculous, and is best suited to be read in conjunction with my other crack!fics- Movie Night and The Fellowship of the Sherwood. Hope you enjoy, and remember, it's more for ridiculousness than for bettering the literature of the Western World.

* * *

It was Little John's fault. Actually, if you wanted to look even further back, it was Marian's fault. The apparently brave men of Robin Hood's gang, however, were too scared to attempt to assign anything other than compliments to Marian however, and so they placed the blame squarely on Little John's shoulders (which, though quite broad, were still weighed down by the accusations.)

It had all begun when Robin had decided that if Gisbourne could write an absurdly successful autobiography (with talks of a three book deal in the works) then he, Robin Hood, the hero of the forest, defender of the people and all-around-good-guy could totally steal the idea and write one too. (None of his men were brave enough to suggest that bad-boys were always likely to attract more attention than good guys, and that Robin might not have the same literary prowess as Gisbourne, whose meditations on the importance of leather clothing in iambic pentameter had led the Nottingham Gazette to place him in the running for Book of the Year 1381.) Robin had launched himself into the idea of writing an autobiography, and had immediately begun speculating about titles, and important events which were to be included. After some weeks of collating his adventures, and battling with issues as complex as punctuation and personification, Robin decided that it was time to hunt down a publisher for his speculatively titled _Dirt on the Hood: The Real Story of the Man of the People. _This would involve a slightly extended journey to London (where the best publishers were apparently to be found), and so the rest of the group, along with Marian (who, an avid fan of Gisbourne's book, refused to be involved in anything that might divide his market), were left to their own devices for a week as their fearless leader went on an epic journey to battle the publishing business.

In retrospect, this turned out to be a bit of a mistake. (Many years later those who composed epic poetry about Robin Hood and his Merry Men decided to avoid mentioning this week at all.)

Marian, who was still unused to the slowness of life in the forest, and who was missing Robin to entertain her, began their troubles by announcing, the morning after Robin's rather flamboyant exit, that it was her turn to watch the television (actually, it was Will's, and he had been planning to use his time to watch Aladdin, because he liked the songs, and when Robin was away no one could shoot arrows at him for singing along). There was some brief _discussion_ about whether or not Will should get his turn, but in the end, being of a disposition that saw him trying to please everyone, Will offered to just watch whatever Marian was watching. This pleased her immensely, and she shot him a thankyou smile that had Djaq turning an interesting purple colour. (She turned an even more interesting colour when Allan took a photograph of her turning the interesting purple colour, and then threatened to put it on his facebook.)

Marian, having claimed possession of the television, hunted around in her bag for some DVDs that she hadn't unpacked yet (she had only been living in the forest with them for a relatively short time), and surprised them all by appearing with a box none of them had ever seen before. Something called _Gilmore Girls. _

"Marian," Much wondered out loud, "what on earth is that? There have to be 6 DVDs in that box! I mean, I've seen the Lord of the Ring's extended editions" (Allan at this point coughed "Sam! Sam!", and then turned away to busy himself with something at his feet to avoid a glare), "and they had a lot of discs in the box, but never so many! How long is this film?"

Marian laughed what Little John thought of as her 'ignorant country folk' laugh, a sort of tinkly, bell-like sound which was usually followed by her instructing them on something that they had missed while they were off fighting injustices. In this instance he had picked the laugh accurately.

"Oh Much!" Marian ruffled his hair affectionately, "haven't you heard? The latest thing is TV on DVD. It means you can buy an entire season of a television show and watch it in your own time. It's just fantastic!"

There was a short pause as they all looked at Marian a bit strangely. TV on DVD?

"Oh, I forgot," Marian said, laughing her 'ignorant country folk' laugh again. "You wouldn't see many tv shows out here would you? You don't get the signal, your television can only play DVDS! Well, let me show you something that will blow your minds."

And with that she put in the first disc of Gilmore Girls season one.

The rest, as they say, is history. (Or more accurately, should have been history, but as pointed out before, the chroniclers and writers of historical poetry absolutely refused to chronicle this chapter of the story, and so the rest was not so much history as something that happened in the past, but was not passed down through the generations. And then, we must ask ourselves the age old question, does that mean it is history or not? Because, after all, what is history?...)

So the rest was maybe not history, but you can obviously guess the outcome of Marian's ill-advised introduction of outlaws to years and years of television shows that they had missed by living out in the forest.

Within a day there were fights over who could use the television, with Little John becoming an absolutely fanatical watcher of Gilmore Girls (he was even reduced to tears a couple times, though would never have admitted this to anyone in the whole world.) When Allan, disappointed that Marian's collection seemed only to include shows about women getting ahead in the world, or having amusing romantic encounters, had immediately gone on an expedition to hunt down more manly TV on DVD and returned with fascinating sounding shows like _The A-Team_ and _Battlestar Galactica_ had tried to turn off Gilmore Girls while John was watching to see what would happen between Rory and Jess it was almost the end of Robin Hood's band of merry men right there and then. Allan only managed to survive because right at the moment when John tried to strike the killing blow Dean dumped Rory on the dance floor, and of course nothing was more important in that moment than rewinding to see exactly what he had missed.

So it was decided that before any other shows could be gotten into, Gilmore Girls had to be finished. Allan, still nursing two black eyes and a possibly broken arm decided not to argue this point.

* * *

Robin Hood, was already in a bad mood when he returned to the forest. The publishers in London had laughed at him when he had suggested that they give him a book deal more lucrative than Gisbournes. (Unlike his Merry Men, these publishers had no qualms about pointing out that bad-boys make better icons, and that Robin didn't have a piece of poetry in him.) After some serious consideration of the pro's and con's of becoming a bad-boy in order to sell more books versus helping the people in return for feeling good and being a good person , Robin had decided that he would stay the man of the people, but only if they agreed to hold him a parade every once in a while. Then, when he had dropped into one of the villages on his way home to broach the parade idea he had been shouted out by some rather grumpy villagers, who apparently hadn't had any deliveries made to them yet that week.

"A parade?! You must be joking Robin! We haven't eaten this week! You and your useless men have forgotten to bring us our deliveries!" At this point Robin thought about suggesting that the villages possibly shouldn't get themselves to be so reliant on him and his men that they couldn't go a week without help (he could definitely see this dependency getting to be a problem in the future,) but he didn't want to endanger his parade idea any further and so decided to suggest that at another time.

He was slightly worried though, as he entered the forest. What had happened to the men that they would stop making deliveries? Had they been captured? He shuddered, because capture at this point would almost certainly have broken their spirit. Gisbourne had threatened that next time they ended up in his jail there would be no physical torture, instead he would recite parts of his new book to them (_On the Care of Leather: A Manual to Keep Your Most Evil Clothes Looking Fresh). _While Djaq and Marian had actually seemed so excited about this idea that they had volunteered for every dangerous mission since (Robin thought maybe the stress of the idea had addled their brains) the rest of the gang had been very fearful of the threat.

He thought about going straight to the castle, because surely on capture and torture could have prevented his men from helping the people, when he heard a loud noise coming from their apparently secret camp. Startled, he ran towards it, thinking that Gisbourne must have finally found it.

He was quite concerned by what he saw. The entire gang were perched around the television, except Will, who was hiding behind the couch, and had apparently been there sometime, because he had a little bed made out of cushions set up. He was periodically peeking his head over the top of the couch, yelping, and then hiding behind it again. They were in various states of distress, Marian in tears, John shouting expletives at the television, Allan simply sitting still with his mouth hanging wide open. Even Djaq, dear sensible Djaq appeared concerned. She was wringing her hands together and talking quickly in Arabic. Robin, recognising a few of the words, winced, and thought about covering his ears.

He waved as he entered, assuming that his presence would immediately soothe over whatever problems were going on. He wasn't noticed, not even by Much, who was stalking about the kitchen and loudly banging pots together.

Robin seriously considered just turning around and leaving then and there, because clearly they had all been driven mad by torture, and there was nothing to be done. Only his sense of duty, and the fact that he really did love Marian, prevented him from just leaving straight away.

"WHAT IS GOING ON??" He bellowed, stopping everyone in their tracks.

Marian was the first to answer, her voice obscured by tears. "Oh Rob, it's just so terrible! You see, Dean and Sam thought they were saving their father, but actually he had a demon in him, and so then they were tortured by their own father, and then finally they escaped only to be hit by a TRUCK! And it was the season finale, and unless we download the latest episodes from America then we won't be able to see what happens for MONTHS!"

Robin, who hadn't understood a word of what she was saying, except to think that American possibly hadn't been discovered yet, and that to have trucks first engines should probably be invented, just nodded, and searched around the group to see if there was anyone present who could give him a not-insane version of events. Hopefully he looked at John. He was disappointed by the answer, which gave him a rather uncomplimentary description of what John thought of the person who had decided to leave the finale on such a cliffhanger, and then not have the next episodes readily available. Then John launched into an apparently unrelated rant about someone called Logan, and why he was all wrong for another person called Rory, and Robin realised he was going to have to ask someone else.

"Will, can you tell me what's going on?"

Will looked around wildly, and Robin realised that this was probably a mistake. "I found _Supernatural _really scary Robin! I haven't slept well, because some of the episodes upset me, but everyone else really wanted to see what happened."

Robin gave him a piece of wood to whittle and moved on to Much.

"Much? My loyal friend, surely you haven't been sucked into all this nonsense?"

"Certainly not Master, I've been against Supernatural from the start. I wanted to watch the Pride and Prejudice miniseries, with Colin Firth" (Marian took a moment to stop crying and sigh happily), "but I was voted down and instead they've been marathoning this rubbish for over a day!"

"Are you guys telling me that you haven't been on a delivery in a week because you were watching movies??" He looked at Marian, because it was her influence that he blamed.

"Actually Robin," Djaq corrected, "it's TV on DVD. At first we were just going to watch a little bit, but then John needed to know what happened in Gilmore Girls, so we watched all seven seasons, even though season 6 and 7 are a little dodgy. And then, because we didn't get a lot of sleep because John was watching Gilmore Girls day and night we decided the deliveries could wait another day, while we caught up on our sleep. But then, on our catch up day, we started watching other shows, and then we discovered Supernatural, and so we had to finish watching and now...now we will never know if Dean and Sam survive!"

Robin sighed. He really didn't understand what was going on, but it was obviously going to be a little while before his gang got over the novelty of this TV on DVD thing and he figured he might as well play along.

"Well, are you ready to do some deliveries yet? Or is there another show that you absolutely have to watch before we can go help the people?"

Marian blushed a bit pink, "well, we did find one in the shop that we're quite excited about. Apparently Gisbourne has set himself up as a talkshow host, and the first season of _The Guy of Gisbourne Show_ just came out on dvd!"

Robin turned and fled.


End file.
